Off the wire
• FIFA chief calls Israel to "help" Palestinian football players  • 1st LD: China to launch 30-bln-USD special fund for China-LatAm production capacity cooperation: premier  • Zambia gov't orders foreign chain stores to halt food imports  • Spanish treasury places 3.458 bln euros on market with negative interest rates  • Kenya confirms 65 deaths from cholera outbreak  • (Sports) Pakistan announces cricket team for T20 series against Zimbabwe  • Feature: Child death, a concern in Kenya  • LME base metals declines on Tuesday  • FTSE 100 up 0.38 pct on Tuesday  • Spanish stock market rises 1.35 pct, closes at 11,497 points  
You are here: 　 Home

Fitch downgrades 4 Portuguese banks

Xinhua, May 20, 2015 Adjust font size:

Rating agency Fitch downgraded four Portuguese banks on Tuesday.

The rating agency said it had downgraded the rating of banks BCP, Banco BPI, Montepio and Banif due to its review of sovereign support for banks globally.

"In line with its expectations announced in March last year and communicated regularly since then, Fitch believes legislative, regulatory and policy initiatives have substantially reduced the likelihood of sovereign support for U.S., Swiss and European Union commercial banks," Fitch said in a statement.

"As a result, Fitch believes that, in line with our Support Rating (SR) definition of '5', extraordinary external support while possible can no longer be relied upon for Millennium bcp, Banco BPI, Montepio and Banif," it added.

Fitch downgraded BCP's long-term debt to 'BB-' from 'BB+' , that of Banco BPI to 'BB' from 'BB+', Montepio to 'B+' from 'BB' and that of Banif to 'B-' from 'BB'.

The rating agency said outlooks were "Stable" for Millennium bcp, Montepio and Banif, and "Positive" for BPI. Endit